Fanny Kate COCKS

COCKS, (FANNY) KATE (BOADICEA) (b. Moonta, SA, 5 May 1875; d. Adelaide, SA, 20 Aug 1954). Policewoman, Methodist welfare worker.

Kate Cocks was the daughter of a Cornish miner (and for a time a farmer) and was largely educated at home by her mother, a teacher. She spent some time continuing her education with relatives in Vic. She taught for a year at a small country school and then became teacher and sub-matron of the Edwardstown Industrial school near Adelaide run by the State Children's Council, which preferred its staff to possess strongly held Christian convictions. She was then a probation officer dealing with juvenile first offenders for ten years. In 1915 Kate Cocks was appointed first principal of women's police in SA, a position she held for twenty years. Her task was to lead the women police in their work among 'wayward' children and 'broken' families. Possessing full police powers and status, the female unit was kept separate from the rest of the SA police force, and never appeared in uniform. It was the first such unit in Australia and one of the first in the world. Cocks' integrity and conservative social values ensured its acceptance and its limited success.

On her retirement in 1935, another career opened up for her. Her police work had led her to become concerned with the welfare of single mothers and the placement of children for adoption under the supervision of the Children's Welfare and Public Relief Department. In June 1935 she proposed to the Methodist Women's Home Mission Association the establishment of a home 'for young women whose moral weaknesses have led them into difficulties from which they are unable to extricate themselves without some competent spiritual and material assistance'. As a start she offered her own home and services, desiring in return 'the opportunity to serve my God, my Church and those who need me'.

The proposal soon elicited the sympathy of Methodists in SA and in 1937, a babies' and girls' home was opened at Brighton on the site of 'Old Oxford House', the training home first erected by Dr William Torr (q.v.). Over the years the property grew in size and the institution became a conduit of Christian compassion for those who came within the ambit of their influence.

For her long career of service to the community and the church Kate Cocks was appointed MBE. She died in 1954 and shortly afterwards the Methodist Church named the Babies' Home after her. It survived until the 1970s when changed attitudes to single motherhood and the decline in adoptions brought about its closure.

Kate Cocks is remembered by her staff as a woman of prayer whose own high moral standards were combined with great concern for those in necessitous circumstances.

ADB 8; P Higgs and C Bettes, To Walk a Fair Beat (Adelaide, 1957); G W Shapley, Kate Cocks: Her Life and Work (Adelaide, 1964)

ARNOLD D HUNT